Menacing characters in films are my favorite; they come in all shapes and sizes and from different genres of film, below is a list of my top 10 menacing characters from film. Initially this was submitted as a list of 17 but it was honed down to a final list of only 10 – the omitted 7 characters are listed at the bottom under notable omissions. If you enjoy this list, you might also want to check out the Top 10 Badass Movie Characters.
This list isn’t all about baddies, or killers or MEN for that matter. Here I include Ellen Ripley because if you piss this woman off she will take your head off and come back for the bloody stump. The day begins normally for our heroine; it’s the run of the mill day for Ellen, travelling in space minding her own business when this little snapping alien shows up and starts feasting on her crew. Does Ellen run and hide? Cower in the corner waiting for help? No. Ellen grabs whatever she can find and fights for her life. They say ‘in space no-one can hear you scream’, I assure you if you go outside on a quiet night and listen really hard, you’ll hear Ripley kicking Alien ass somewhere in the universe.
Menace Factor: The safest place in the universe is standing behind Ellen Ripley.
We’re not safe walking alone on a dark night, we’re not safe leaving our doors unbolted and we’re not safe taking help from a complete stranger: you’d have thought slipping into a sweet sublime slumber would hold no worries for us. We’d be wrong because Mr. Krueger dwells in our dreams. After a spate of child kidnap/murders residents of Elm Street corner the accused and play catch the Molotov Cocktail, Freddy is rubbish at catch and loses, consumed in flames he makes a deal with 3 Demons where he agrees to hang loose in our dreams for a while. The Freddy we know and love is born. Try all the coffee, pills and potions you like, you’ll inevitably fall asleep and then Freddy is going to julienne you like a freshly plucked carrot.
Menace Factor: 1…..2…..Freddy’s coming for you…..
I’m not keen on men who like little girls, it’s wrong, shout, kick, scream, moan, jump up and down and have all the opinions you like; it’s still wrong. Hayley Stark thinks the same as me only unlike me she’s off to do something about it. Hayley looks young for her age and plays the cutie school girl long enough to drug her ‘older admirer’, tie him down and start to…. shall we say; perform surgery on his nether regions! There is not reasoning with Hayley, she has an answer for everything and doesn’t care for your bullshit. Top girl in my opinion.
Menace Factor: Cute as a button unless you’re a paedo.
Now Norman is the kind of guy you can take home to the family. Owns a big, albeit creepy, house overlooking his own Motel, dresses smart, albeit in the fancy new summer dress you just paid a fortune for, but a bloke that loves his mother ‘that much’ has to be respectable marriage material surely….. Doesn’t he? Alright, alright you caught me, I’m bending the truth slightly, Norman is obsessive, jealous, and he thinks women and sex are dirty (because his lovely mother says so) oh and just one more small thing…… Norman has Dissociative Personality Disorder, which means he has at least two compete personalities, the other being his dead mother, who Norman killed and now keeps her body in the creepy house I mentioned earlier.
Menace Factor: My advice? Doesn’t matter how tired you are or how hard it’s raining, keep driving.
Carrie White just goes to show that bullies can only push someone so far before they flip out and cause mayhem with their magical powers. Carrie’s not a bad girl, she just wants to get on with things, blend in with the crowd, it’s the people around her that don’t allow this to happen and end up paying the ultimate price. The decisive moment of humiliation in Carrie’s life comes at the prom, having a bucket of pigs’ blood poured over her and the pristine white dress she’s wearing gets Carrie a little mad, chaos ensues and Carrie creates havoc. I hope Carrie’s classmates enjoyed tormenting and taunting her because they ultimately pay with their lives.
Menace factor: She who laughs last, laughs longest (even if she is covered in blood).
This bloke would go through you for a short cut, literally. He’s the classic son just trying to do well for his family sake. Oh but his ‘trying to do well’ involves segmenting you into 200 portions with his trusty chainsaw or hanging you via a rusty meat hook through your cranium. Nice guy I hear you cry, ah give him the benefit of the doubt… the kids van broke down, what else was he to do on that hot Texas afternoon? Mow the grass?
Menace Factor: I’d have screamed that much too.
You’ve heard the term ‘bunny boiler’ yes? It gets used to describe anyone who becomes slightly infatuated with someone else, well; this film is where the phase was coined. Married guy meets girl, has weekend fling and thinks nothing more of it. Our Alex on the other hand has her own ideas about the relationship; Alex wants the married guy more and more and will do anything to get him, anything, including preparing him a nice rabbit stew and making sure his wife has fresh towels for bath time. How sweet of her.
Menace Factor: Ending relationships amicably since 1987.
This guy can smell you coming, has no fear and if that’s not scary enough he has a voice that could lull you into what you’d think would be a safe and peaceful slumber. When his help is needed to solve an F.B.I case Hannibal manages to escape, he eats his way through his guards face before disappearing into the great-blue-yonder. He freaks us out because we have no idea of how much he is actually capable of. Buffalo Bill is a pussy compared to Dr. Lecter.
Menace Factor: Drop of Chianti anyone?
All work and no play can make me a dull girl so I completely understand Jack wanting to dissect his squeaky voiced wife. Holed up in a snowbound vacant motel Jack is only trying to quietly finish writing his novel. When writers block kicks in and his invariably chipper wife becomes slightly more infuriating with each passing scene, Jack’s sanity skids into oblivion and he finds his hands tightly wrapped around an axe handle. I warn you guys, creep tentatively around this guy.
Menace Factor: He’d split you like a block of rotten wood.
You get switched at birth; it’s not your fault. You have Latin choral chanting as your entrance music; not your fault. You find yourself to be the spawn of Satan, well that’s not your fault either but excuse me if I don’t want to play hide and go seek with you. Damien spends the majority of his time staring absorbedly at people and making them altogether freaked out, people are dying all around him, committing suicide and it takes almost an hour and a half before someone realizes everything is connected to the sweet (if a bit eerie) Damien. Being the son of the Devil is bad enough but having to do his dirty work for him here on earth is just not fair on the little bugger.
Menace Factor: You’d honestly die to look after this child, just ask his nanny.
Notable Omissions: Captain Spaulding, Cannibalistic Mountain Men, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, Hades (The Hills Have Eyes 2), Michael Myers, Dracula
Great list btw, don’t usually like movie lists but this was well written
Great list !! Hannibal is my all time favourite villan ; you can’t help but love him.
Would like to have seen Meagan – from The Exorcist…. another great character.
I absolutely hated that chick from Hard Candy, that movie disturbed me so bad, I couldn’t finish it. Ugh.
Am I the only one who really didn’t like Jack Nicholson in The Shining? I thought the book was so much more frightening than this movie (the remake for TV was much better, IMO) I thought Jack’s character was a little over-the-top, leaning toward comical.
Yeah silence of the lambs was hellla freaky. The movie..scary the book…self urination factor of 10
It’s the ones who are most realistic that are the most menacing to me. I grew up in a town where there were guys like Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men) for real. Having one of those guys in your face, and nothing you can say won’t be turned against you. That’s the scariest ***** in the world.
i think this list would have been 100 times better if it had all beleiveable characters, who really cares about freddy and damien etal, they are horror movie “monsters” might as well put frankenteins monster on there, characters from thrillers (not horrors) are the ones that are really menacing, the ones that make you believe in them and crossing their paths is the last thing you would want ot do
Christopher Walken in anything.
Brick Top – Snatch
Christopher Walken – True Romance
Mr. Blonde – Reservoir Dogs
Marselles Wallace – Pulp Fiction
Amon Goth – Schindler’s List
The Joker – The Dark Knight
Anton Chuger – No Country For Old Men
Travis Bickle – Taxi Driver
I really like the addition of Ellen Page for her role in Hard Candy which was just class
the Kurgan
Lawrence Olivier in the Marathon Man was menacing, my teeth hurt just thinking about him.
the chick from Inside should be on this.
but its stil an amzing list.
“I’m not keen on men who like little girls, it’s wrong, shout, kick, scream, moan, jump up and down and have all the opinions you like; it’s still wrong.”
…Are a lot of readers with pro-pedophilia opinions on listverse?
This list needed a little more thinking. Some of the choices are ok but there are far better choices out there.
Good List
A few I think are menacing
Michael Corleone anyone who would send his own brother to sleep with the fishes is nobody to mess with.
Darth Vader
John Rambo
@Simon H (Heckmondwike) (75): Ripley’s coming to get you.
chubbmeister–#46
That’s the beginning of a famous shot that Hitch*****used to show Norman’s interior rottenness, and bring the movie full circle back to the original girl who was killed in the shower.
The odd look around his lips is because Hitch*****is almost subliminaly superimposing a shot of Mother’s skeletal, grinning face over Norman’s. (Remember, it’s her voice you hear right at the end). That very disturbing image fades into a view of the back of the car as it is winched out of the swamp, the back grill echoing the skeletal smile.
Great list. I agree that Norman Bates was one of the creepiest characters in movies. That was the first horror flick that I was allowed to go see when I was a kid, and I took baths for a month.
Another one that deserved a mention was Tony Todd as the Candyman. Man, that guy was sick.
The other actors that have been mentioned in the comments sure bring back some memories. I think that actors enjoy playing menacing characters, because it allows them to really let loose.
Some good characters on here, but this list seems a bit confusing. When I think of menacing I think more of villans, bad guys, or killers. Ripely and Hayley Stark are definitely badass but they seem more like heroines rather than menacing. BTW, I love that you mentioned Hayley Stark. Her character is amazing in that movie.
I can think of a couple that were good in one flick but the sequels ruined them: Samara from “The Ring” (both the American and Japanese versions) and Jigsaw from the original “Saw.”
The twist at the end of “Saw” made the whole movie. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
“The Ring” haunted my wife for a week. “Ringu” was arguably a better, smarter film, but the American remake was scarier.
Anyone remember the film “Five Corners,” with Jodie Foster? John Turturro played Heinz Sabatini in it: a seriously twisted piece of work. To cross his path even marginally was to invite hurt, if not death. On the night he’s going to die, he hurls his own mother out her sixth-floor window (capping a long list of atrocities casual and brutal).
But for sheer badassery on the non-villain side of the ledger, there’s Robert Duvall’s character in “Apocalypse Now” — setting up air support so he and fellow officers can go surfing on a Vietnamese river during a vicious firefight. Gotta love it!
And: @#71: yeah, truly, Olivier’s Nazi was chilling. And #49 — yup, can’t forget Keyser Soze!
Anton Chigurh (No country for old men) is a notable omission too
Oh this list could be debated forever. For my entry HAL from 2001.
78 frushka
I live on Milton Road, lol. Lets see what she can do…
Some very interesting points raised here, which has got me thinking!
@pergola (87): Déjà vu
Whats interesting is a Lot of these characters are “people” characters that are nutz or violent. they arent “Supervillian Cliches”
No Dennis the Menace?
For the other Christopher Walken fans, there’s a little movie called “The Addiction” starring Lili Taylor. Not a great movie but Walken’s on screen for between 5-10 minutes playing an old vampire. Chris doesn’t have to act menacing.
Where the hell is Anton Chigurgh????? Ke kicks everybodys ass on this list
Great list, and great idea having Damien as number one. I do believe it’s Jack “Torrence” rather than “Torrance”. Great list nonetheless.
Ah ha ha ha ha! I really enjoyed this list. I love scary film characters.
What, no Kathy Bates from “Misery”?
what about alex from clockwork orange, or HAL?
I really think Michael Myers from the Halloween series. Just the fact that he has a blank, expressionless mask, he never talks and he is super fast and sneaky would scare me way more than any other horror movie killer would.
WHERE IS JOCKER?
Willem Defoe, Christopher Walken, and Kurtwood Smith. They scare the crap out of me even when they’re not acting.
Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Hannibal Lecter are all based off of Ed Gein, a real person, which definitely makes them more me menacing (well creepy) in my opinion.
Terrible comedy plus terrible spelling equals go back to school.
Also the writing was just as horrid.
Put it in me Scott
great list
how ’bout Harvey Keitel in “The Bad Lieutenant”? THAT’S BADASS!
Someone else may have mentioned him, but I’m not sure how Darth Vader isn’t on here. I mean he chokes you with his mind for cryin out loud.
When I saw the list title, I was like “Hayley from Hard Candy had damn well better be on this list”. And then she was! Bravo!
The bit where Jeff asks if she’s going to torture him, and she says: “Torture, really? You think this is torture? I suppose you haven’t read anything from Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch?” It’s just terrifying for so many reasons.
@ 24 Jason
oh god, Frank Booth IS one menacing motherf****r! and so is Bobby Peru, his teeths alone could be counted as menacing characters!
@missmozell (79):
Thanks, now that you mention it, I can see the outline of the skeleton face. Funny, I’ve seen the movie at least twice, but didn’t recall…
My partners parents saw the Omen just before my partner was born, they like the name so much they named him Damien.
Hmmm. It’s an interesting list. I’m sure we all have our own opinions on who we feel to be menacing, however. Here’s how my list would turn out:
10. Begby from Trainspotting
9. Little Bill from Unforgiven
8. Lurtz from Fellowship of the Ring
7. Rorschach from Watchmen
6. Patrick Batemen from American Psycho
5. That damn mouse (Mr. Jingles?)from The Green Mile, because I find mice to be highly menacing.
4. The Witch King from Return of the King
3. The psycho killer from No Country for Old Men
2. Heath Ledger’s Joker
1. Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs
First of all, Carrie does not deserve to be here. Carrie was out for revenge, and menace does not equal revenge. Carrie wasn’t EVIL, she was… erm, well, just a bit crazy. But those girls deserved it.
Second of all, this list would have been great if it did not have the grammatic equivalent of a 3rd-Grade Book Report.
Oh man, Captain Spaulding is only a notable omission?
I thought people were talking about Groucho Marx’s Captain Spaulding, and thought wtf? menacing?? Maybe it’s the eyebrows, mustache or cigar.
I’ve now just done enough research to know what you’re talking about.
Personally, Pinhead and Jigsaw are my two favorite and most menacing characters… Good list despite them being only a notable omission and not even present.
Creeeeeepy…
Dude from american psycho was pretty menacing
I love Carrie White! I think I can relate to her a little. . .
Eric Cartman of South Park. He would made Norman Bates eat his mother.
@45
My scariest movie experience was watching The Ring with my husband- I’d had a ton of coke to drink. Maybe caffeine heightens terror? Anyone else have this experience?
the girl from THE AUDITION by Takashi Miike would own this list.
My top 5 scariest movie characters are
5. Lassie
4. Ernest from Ernest goes to camp
3. Spongebob
2. Papa Smurf
1. Pee Wee Herman
Thought of another one. Remember in Goodfellas, Joe Pesci played Tommy DiVito,”You think I’m funny? Funny how?” That’s the kind of menacing that gets me all sweaty just watching it.